A local drone enthusiast caught a surfer waving to his drone this week as a shark swam right under her board.
Paul Hibberd told NBC 7 that he captured the video on Tuesday around 4:30 p.m. He said he went back out on Thursday and spotted nearly half a dozen sharks, which he thinks may have been great whites.
On Friday, NBC 7 asked Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher Daniel Cartamil to take a look at the video.
"That certainly does appear to be a white shark," Cartamil said. "It is never that straightforward to estimate size from photos like these, but this appears to be a mid-sized juvenile, which are often found in southern California coastal waters."
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Cartamil's collegue Andrew Nosal concurred.
"Yes, I agree, this looks like a juvenile white shark," Nosal said, adding, "I think it's a little unusual to have many juvenile white sharks close to shore in SoCal in winter (six in one area would be exciting, but not unusual in summer)."
Local
A group of what appeared to be juvenile white sharks were spotted in October off Torrey Pines State Beach.
Flying overhead at about 3:30 p.m. SkyRanger 7 easily spotted several of the sharks, including a group of three swimming near one another.
Cameras were able to record a shark swimming languidly below and near a surfer, who, possibly not knowing of the shark's presence, was sitting up on his board, feet dangling beneath. The shark, though, seemed to pay the surfer no mind, much the same thing that happened this week in Del Mar.
